ARC Playtests unfold

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ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34
ARC Playtests unfold

Post by ngoeminne » Fri Dec 23, 2016 15:10

Hi folks,

Arcmage is getting more and more playtests. Louis is battling his brother using the two printed pre-con decks, and Clemens and I set out for an online playtest: 'Toll of Time' vs 'Brother in Arms'. I'd assume it would be an easy win for the search and fetch deck, but it was a very very close call.

Clemens, started with a one draw/one resource strategy. I went for fast resource ramp, and using the search and fetch to make up for the diminished card draw. The main strategy here is getting a band of brothers on the table, in order to play soldiers for free. And use a squad leader to draw additional soldiers.

That worked quite well, but Clemens had nice countermeasures: prison term, return to sender, recession. And used Carpe diem on my main assault (I buffed my soldiers legion with +3/+1 and first strike). It left me with just enough attack force to destroy one of his cities.

In the following turn, he returned the assault, with a larger force then I had anticipated. (Played two creatures, one of them beeing the merchant ship) and moved them directly to his army.
There went one of my cities...

After some more battling, we both could destroy another city, and my last city got up to 5 damage.
Luckily, just in time my mounted eagle came to the rescue and attacked Clemens last city.

After about 1h, it came down to 1 HP difference. Very close call, nice game.

So, the conclusions for the HoN deck, the mill strategy wasn't used that much, however its disruptive force was very good. We didn't find any bugs/loophole's in the rules, and it was fun to play with shifting balances. The game was a bit long, but it was also our first real match.

The online game had a single hickup where some cards weren't moved correctly. (that needs to be fixed).

All in all, pretty happy.
Kind regards,
Nico
Desttinghim
Posts:45
Joined:Sun Nov 13, 2016 08:36
Location:Utah

Re: ARC Playtests unfold

Post by Desttinghim » Sat Dec 24, 2016 03:52

Sounds like you had a lot of fun with that playtest! My brother and I are having fun with the Uneasy Alliance, Gaian Love for Life, and Brother in Arms decks. We just printed out Brother in Arms, but it seems like it is a fairly good deck. Gaian Love for Life still seems like the most powerful decks that I've seen played yet. In fact, as I my brother mentioned on the discord channel, it feels overpowered. I think the biggest reason for this is because of Farmland's level 2 ability. It doubles resources at level 2. This is, in my opinion, horribly overpowered. Let me explain:

The purpose of resources is to pace the game. Imagine that resources have been removed from the game (and not replaced with another system). The flow, or pace, of the game is ruined. On your first turn all your cards are out, and those 4/4 flyers you had will be ready to attack by the second turn. What I'm saying is that Farmland allows one player to double how fast he is going through the game on the second turn in most games. This article explains in more depth and better.

That said, I think the easiest fix would be to allow the player to tap flowers and trees for resources instead of doubling the output. I am planning to playtest with this change in place, and I will report back on how it goes.
ngoeminne
Posts:324
Joined:Mon Feb 29, 2016 15:34

Re: ARC Playtests unfold

Post by ngoeminne » Sat Dec 24, 2016 15:35

Hi Louis,

Nice to see the challenge 'amin duna, ilya lanta' spoken more often :-)
I'm really happy you guys find time to play.

On a side note, Framland is pretty powerful, still more games are needed to either up the level, or apply the fix you provided. Of course you guys can play however you like :-)

For arcmage, we'll need to set up something to decide on card text + balance.
It shouldn't just be me having the final say.

- for new cards/decks I say, anything can change
- for release candidate cards/decks, we'd better keep the changes as minimal as possible
- there I'd opt to not change something unless it's validated by different play test groups (clemens, louis, geemili, bart & koen and me )

The same goes for the 'official' rullings that might follow. Although I'd like to keep that to a minimum, and let players decide on stuff as well (- we play it like that)

Anyway, thx, for the feedback,
Kind regards,
Nico
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